Severe winter weather incoming
Blue skies over the Beezley Hills above the southern end of Ephrata will soon be replaced with more clouds and snow than it saw Tuesday afternoon in this photo. Forecasters are recommending that area residents be mindful of upcoming severe weather.
R. HANS MILLER/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
SPOKANE — It being January and being winter, there’s some good weather news and some bad weather news. The good news is that temperatures are forecast to rise above freezing, at least a little. The bad news is the forecast is for nasty, messy, slippery weather.
Jeremy Wolf, meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Spokane, said snow totals are forecast to be three to four inches in Moses Lake and six to eight inches in Ritzville by the time the first round of the current snowfall ends.
“On Thursday, we’re going to see a break in the snow in the morning, but then the next round of snow arrives in the afternoon and evening,” Wolf said during a media briefing Tuesday. “Then as we go into Friday and Saturday, much of that snow is going to be transitioning into a wintry mix.”
The snow that’s forecast to fall through Thursday afternoon is the kind that’s subject to drifting.
“This is going to be a powdery snow at the onset of the event, so this is going to be a light, fluffy snow compared to the wet snow that we’ve been getting with most of our events so far this winter,” Wolf said.
Winds are forecast to be light, but that might not be much help.
“Given that we’re looking at dry, powdery snow for much of the event, it’s not going to take a lot of wind to cause some drifting snow and some locally blowing snow with this weather system,” Wolf said.
The potential for drifting is highest in the Palouse and the Clarkston area, he said.
Winds are forecast to pick up to about 15 miles per hour Thursday night.
Temperatures are expected to warm up, at least a little, Friday and Saturday, with a high of 30 degrees on Friday and 33 degrees Saturday in Moses Lake. But that brings with it an increased chance of that wintry mix stuff.
“Right now we’re looking at a mainly snow event across the Cascades and over Northern Washington,” Wolf said. “But then as you get down into the Columbia Basin and the Spokane area, there’s a mixed bag of precipitation types expected, including snow, sleet and freezing rain.”
Whether or not it’s rain, snow or freezing rain depends in part on how quickly the Arctic air mass that has dropped temperatures into single digits in the Columbia Basin recedes, he said. As of Tuesday morning Moses Lake had a 42% chance of freezing rain over the weekend, while Othello had a 45% chance.
“Typically, with these Arctic air masses, the (forecast) models struggle with how quickly the lower levels warm up. So this is subject to change,” he said.
The forecast is for about one one-hundredth of an inch, what Wolf called a “light glaze.”
The precipitation is forecast to still be around Sunday and possibly into Monday, but temperatures will be warming to the point it’s mostly rain in Grant County. Wolf said the 10-day outlook is for warmer and wetter weather than normal.
Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.